Episodes 2 through 4 of Majestic prince give us a bit more action, a bit more back story, a bit more character development, and a lot more poor character designs. They also introduce a new character, a white haired beauty named Theoria who may be more than she appears.
Impressions and Highlights:
While the character designs still bug me, these episodes did a lot toward my enjoyment of the show. For one, they explained, reasonably, why our little five man band was able to accomplish what they did in the first episode. But more than that, the show displayed a sufficient level of vulnerability so these young pilots don't seem like unbeatable heroes.
One of the key areas where that vulnerability was shown was on the home front. The kids were entirely unable to handle the attention they received as a result of their heroism. In the “press conference” they were comical, almost painfully so, in their awkwardness. It also introduces the fact that Asagi is having so much trouble dealing with the stress that his stomach is bothering him.
The clever use of social media in the show impressed me. I like the way Suruga was watching the feed of their press conference during the press conference. Reading the scrolling comments kind of gave him a real time look at how idiotic they seemed!
The scene after the press conference, however, was one of the best moments in the show so far. A group of the civilians that Team Rabbits saved when they pushed back the aliens and prevented them from taking the base that the brass had written off as a loss comes to thank them. Not only is it sweet and heart warming, it demonstrates that the animators are perfectly capable of making attractive characters, as the little girl who gives a thank you card to Tamaki is about the cutest thing in the show! The reactions of the kids as they deal with a sincere outpouring of emotion from people whose lives were saved by their actions is really well done.
Another “back to reality” moment, came when Team Rabbits was sent out to do a relatively simple job of deploying communications satellites that were destroyed in the battle. But to complicate things, they are outfitted in sponsor decals like race cars and the entire thing is being covered live by the news media. Of course, things go wrong. A group of of aliens, flying previously unseen attack craft, disrupt their assignment. When the combat unit for Asagi is deployed, he misses the rendezvous, a video of which goes viral. And, for the most part, they are unable to deal with the enemy.
After this very public failure, the team has routine physicals and the doctor suggests some R&R is in order for the young pilots. She also hints that there may be something seriously wrong with one of the characters, but so far nothing more has been said about it. The trip to a resort is a handy excuse for a swimsuit episode, though the suits the girls wear are not the most attractive in the world (see the first picture above.)
The resort trip provides plenty of opportunity for some character development, with some indications that Kei may be harboring feelings for Izuru, more failed romantic pining from Tamaki, and the introduction of another character, Theoria, who may or may not be human. (There is a section of one of the episodes that indicated to me that she may be one of the aliens.)
Interestingly, Izuru's first meeting with Theoria results in his being tossed into the zero-G swimming pool by her bodyguard/butler guy, when Izuru sees her arguing with him and for some unknown reason, even to him, tries to intervene. When asked about it by his friends (after they rescue him from the pool, as it turns out that he can't swim) he says he has never met her, but he feels like he knows her somehow. This discussion touches on the fact that these kids don't have actual parents and that their memories the foster families they were placed with and all of their personal memories prior to entering the military school they attend were erased.
The concept of the origin of these young pilots is also covered quite well in these episodes. They are genetically designed individuals, created as part of a program with the intent of helping the human race adapt to life in space. However, it is clear that some of the people in the military view them as “custom designed soldiers”. The rational for their enhanced fighting capabilities is the “Juria” system. Their mecha units have been, somehow, imbued with the pilot's DNA, giving the machine itself a sort of survival instinct. This means that the machine sometimes “wants” to choose the “flight” aspect of the “Fight of Flight” instinct. However, when the pilot pushes past this and the machine goes into action, the combat power is enhanced by the system, giving the pilot a distinct advantage.
Team Rabbits were chosen to work together specifically because they have the strongest survival instincts of the candidates in their school. The problem with them is that none of them ever scored well in the “teamwork” portions of their training. If this band of misfits can be taught to actually work as a team, they will be truly impressive, or so the theory goes. Their hot instructor with a sweet tooth, we find out in Episode 4, is a childhood friend of the huge breasted, sake drinking chief mechanic and was also the only pilot to return alive from one of the early attacks by the aliens. She was not entirely pleased to have been assigned to teach, but the commander impressed upon her that her piloting days were over and passing on her strong survival skills to a new generation of pilots was imperative!
The action highlight of the episodes comes from another failed mission. This time, the failure is due mostly to incompetent leadership, as they are sent out on a mission with some high muckety muck in the military, who either was given bad intelligence info, or badly misinterpreted the info he was given, about a supposed supply convoy that they are sent to ambush. It turns out that it is not supply convoy, but instead a group of forward scouts with very high military capability. Episode 3 ends with Tamaki's “Rose 3″ taking a bad hit, with the potential of her not making it back.
After the interesting choice of placing the back-story for their teacher in the middle of a battle, the story concludes this misadventure in a pretty impressive fashion. In the battle, we see much of what we have learned about the “Juria” system in action. The units all seem to shut down when their cowardly and abrasive commander makes an ill advised comment about the huge cost of these pilots while refusing to order them to retreat in the face of a far superior force. However, when Izuru concocts and carries out a plan to save Tamaki, we see the other side of the coin at work. All in all, it is a great battle sequence, with some indication that the group is learning to fight as a team.
All in all, the show is fun to watch. The space battles are fantastic and well planned, there is a bit of mystery to what little plot there is, with the new character spicing things up quite a bit. However, much of the dialog is beyond cheesy and groan-worthy, and the majority of the characters are paper thin and one dimensional. If they can actually pull off some character growth and plot development in the next few episodes, it will make the show really worthwhile, instead of just a fun, predictable place to see really good CGI space battles.